


The 6'5 Private Detective

by AuteurOnirique



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Detective AU, F/F, F/M, Thomas is mentioned but I wrote it before the season 4 finale, it's one-sided ashebones, sort of noir AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-16 20:37:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16961067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuteurOnirique/pseuds/AuteurOnirique
Summary: This was written in answer to this prompt: 1: I’m a private detective hired to follow you, but you’re endearingly boring and mostly I just like watching you and oops, I sort of find you adorable.Billy Bones is sent to follow Abigail Ashe. What secrets will he discover?





	The 6'5 Private Detective

“Listen, Billy, I’m up my ass with this Flint guy, I can’t go into another investigation,” Silver explains, as if repeating it would make the proposition more reasonable.

“I’m still 6’5,” Billy answers, “which is a slight disadvantage when you have to follow people around.”

“It’s not about how you are, it’s about how you act! Just…. look cool, relaxed, like you just happen to be here, no big deal. Plus, I’m fairly sure everyone will be so taken in how you look that they won’t pay any attention in what you’re doing.”

“This was not why you hired me,” Billy insists because Silver has this tendency to lie to people to get them to do what he wants them to.

“I know, I know, Billy, but look, this Ashe guy is loaded, and following his daughter can’t be that hard? I’m sure she just has a boyfriend who’s not to Daddy’s tastes so she sneaks out after class to make out somewhere. You just have to find her, follow her around for a week, give us a schedule and some pictures of her and her boyfriend and then we’ll find out more about him, his name, and  his address. Then Daddy will take care of him, like send some goons to cut off his balls, not that’s any of our concern, and she’ll maybe find a new secret boyfriend that I will track down myself since I’ll have killed the Flint guy myself…”

Silver is stressed out, Billy recognize. He hasn’t slept the last three days and he’s only still standing thanks to the sheer power of coffee, cigarettes, and his obsession for their latest client.

Not a good time for him to handle more cases. Billy sighs. Investigation is very different from being the intimidating muscles in the background, making sure people who need to sit still actually sit still, throwing the occasional punch, and the general keeping the books business, but he should be able to do it. Just a small one-week job, no big deal.

“Alright, fine, I’ll do it. But don’t fire me if she spots me,” Billy accepts.

“Good, perfect!” Silver nods and pats his shoulder before taking up some of the papers littering his desk: “So this is the girl, Abigail Ashe…”

Billy knows he should pay more attention to what Silver is telling him but he just can’t. The girl on the grainy black and white photograph looks… beautiful. She has long dark hair flowing over her shoulders, a very conservative skirt and a light sweater. She’s not looking at the camera but appears to be talking with a teacher, revealing only her profile and just how rounded her shoulders are. Her glasses are sitting on the cutest nose Billy has ever seen.

“… where she has dinner with her father every week on Sunday… Oh well, you look like you’re already doing your job quite well…”

“Sorry, what was that?” Billy blinks twice before looking back to Silver.

“The ‘don’t leave her out of your sight’ job,” Silver teases with his too-big-for-good-news smile.

Billy mumbles something about hating his job and leaves with the picture and Silver’s notes.

 

***

 

The next day, Billy sits in his car in front of the university, doing his best to look inconspicuous. He has some books on the passenger seat to make it look like he’s a student and his pen and notebook add nicely to the part. He scribbles some notes on the page but he is actually scanning the crowd of students leaving after their last class, discussing in pairs or in larger groups.  
There are many girls that look like Abigail Ashe but none of them are her.

She looked so discreet, like she was trying to make people forget she was here in the first place, that Billy is afraid he’ll miss her. He doesn’t know why, but he knows he wouldn’t forgive himself if he missed her.

He doesn’t. Miss her. He spots her, books in her arms, glasses on her nose, hair carefully tucked behind her ears. She’s talking to some other students, all girls. One of them, the one who seems to be doing most of the talking, is a tall blonde girl, the one on her right looks at the blonde girl with a smile and a raised eyebrow, and the last one has sable hair and a bored look on her face. They don’t stay in front of the university very long however, and soon they start walking down the streets, still talking to each other. Billy swears under his breath and gets out of the car. He can’t follow them through the crowd by car, so he’ll have to walk and do his best to blend in. He’s still 6’5.

He feels like the worst kind of creep following them but he can’t tear his eyes from the way Abigail Ashe’s hair bounces with every step. Once, he thinks he hears her laugh in the middle of the chatter of the crowd and he feels like he’s looked through a secret window.

They all turn in a smaller street where Billy can’t follow without immediately being noticed. He continues walking but remembers the name of the street. He walks all around the block and notices the street is actually an arcade that has several bookstores, cafés, and art supply stores (he feels pretty stupid for having missed it but he tells himself his focus on Abigail Ashe is justified). It isn’t crowded or noisy. It feels quite calm, like an afternoon at the library on a hot day. Billy takes his time walking past the stores. Some people look at him, but he still has his notebook in hand so they don’t stare much. Some girls do, but not the girls he had seen with Abigail Ashe.

Some books may or may not have caught his eye. He sets a slow pace so he can take everything and not be too obvious by coming to an abrupt stop when he finds Abigail Ashe again.  
A voice catches his attention. A deep feminine voice, calm but assertive. It’s slightly louder than the rest of the noise and Billy can hear it coming from behind him. He pretends he’s looking at the books in front of him, picks one up and opens it, while he uses the window’s reflection to look behind him.

There’s a woman, a professor no doubt, sitting at a table on the terrasse of a café. She has a book in her hand and a cup of tea in front of her. She is addressing the group of girls Abigail Ashe left with. And here she is, again. Her hair is in the bun this time, and she’s sitting a little away, two people between her and the professor, but she is watching at her with rapt adoration, taking notes sometimes. There are two other girls in the group, a brunette and a ginger. They don’t look like students, but they’re completely accepted and the professor answers their questions with just as much patience.

Billy nearly jumps when the shopkeeper asks him if he’s going to buy the book he’s been holding for a while now. He feels himself getting embarrassed before he can think about keeping his composure. He can feel the group of girls in the café looking at him. He hopes he hasn’t blown his cover. He buys the book and only after does he realize it’s an English translation of _Swann’s Way_ by Marcel Proust.

He knows nothing about Marcel Proust but he keeps the book in the pocket of his jacket as he goes to meet Silver at their usual bar to report what he has found. Silver asks for any sign of a lover but Billy shakes his head. Silver strokes his moustache, smiling to himself before paying for his drink and leaving him to go home.

 

***

 

There is no lover. There are no parties. There are no illicit substances. There are no secret communist meetings. There is nothing that could warrant Peter Ashe to be suspicious.

Abigail takes the bus to university at the same hour everyday. On Thursday, she is a little late and has to take the next bus. She frets for a good five minutes before settling down and reading a book at the bus stop. Her father is so rich he could probably have someone drive her there but she always takes the bus.

Billy parks his car a little further up the street and pretends he’s waiting for the bus that goes in the other direction. She never seems to notice him but then again, she appears to spend most of her time reading. Sometimes, as he sits here, waiting for her to arrive, he tries to guess what she’ll wear and how she’ll do her hair. Winter is fading into spring but she doesn’t seem to be ready to relinquish big fluffy sweaters and tights. Mornings are still quite cold, Billy agrees, wearing his own grey sweater. Once, she had her hair in a messy braid, and Billy has never seen something that lovely.

She takes the bus to university and Billy can follow her on campus, sometimes. He reads Swann’s Way in order to be discreet. He tries not to read too much when he’s home so he’ll have some to read on campus, but then he realizes he can’t really focus on it when he’s looking all around for her. She has lunch with her friends, the same ones she had been at the café with. They talk animatedly about politics and philosophy and writers Billy has never heard of before. He knows the names of her friends now: Eleanor is the blonde girl who apparently has a tempestuous love life with several people, Madi seems to be Abigail’s closest friend, or at least they agree on most things. Madi doesn’t seem to be interested in even having a love life. Idelle, the girl with the sable hair has a lot of lovers, too much to call it a love life, she says, especially since she doesn’t seem to love any of her partners, except for that one man, but that doesn’t matter to Billy. Abigail rarely speaks during these conversations but she’s teased about it sometimes and she always says: “I want to wait for the right one.” to which Eleanor always replies: “There’s no right one, just pick one you enjoy looking at.”

Billy will never forget the first time he heard Abigail’s voice. He’s never heard anything so soft and so melodious. It sounds like the soothing tide of the sea and, in a very strange way, like the spots of light the sun makes on the grass under a tree. Once, Billy reads his novel, imagining how it would sound in her voice.

After her classes, she heads to the library. She has a favourite seat by the window, which is very good for Billy since he can’t enter the student’s library. Once, someone took her seat but she didn’t protest, just sat on the nearest available chair. She always puts her hair up at this stage of the day. Billy wishes he could see what she is reading.

She studies there for three hours, sometimes more if she finishes her classes early. Then, she leaves, sometimes forgetting to put her hair down, and walks to the bus stop, her books in her arms. Once, on Wednesday, a man had started following her to the bus stop, but she never noticed him because Billy had taken him by the collar and slammed him on a wall in the nearest alley before swearing he would cut off his balls with his bowie knife if he ever saw him again.

Then she gets homes and Bill can’t really follow her there. No one can, actually, the Ashe palace is guarded like Alcatraz, so whatever lover Ashe is worried about, he wouldn’t break in the Ashe property just to sneak a girl’s room. You would, Billy’s traitorous mind supplies, you would break in if Abigail said she wanted to see you.

 

***

 

On Saturday evening, Silver makes him drink to forget how unsuccessful his hunt is going so far. “That’s how the job goes,” Silver says, “most of the time it’s boring as hell. The rest of the time, you’re flirting with the hearse. No middle ground. Ashe will sleep a little easier knowing that his daughter is the perfect little student most parents don’t even dare dream about!”

Billy doesn’t agree with Silver’s derogatory tone but he lets it go. He hasn’t slept well this past week and the alcohol is going straight to his head. He knows he should be careful about what he says.

“I wonder what made him worried in the first place,” He asks aloud to himself.

“Well, you still have one day left to discover,” Silver answers with his signature shit-eating smile. “You know, even God took a break on the seventh day. Maybe perfect little miss Ashe will too.”

 

***

 

Billy doesn’t know what Abigail Ashe does on Sunday, how long she stays in bed, where she goes, if she takes the bus, or is driven around… So he decides not to take any chances and sits in his car by the bus stop at the usual hour.

He’s reading the last pages of _Swann’s Way_ , doing his best to keep an eye out for her.

He feels quite torn about his last day on the job. On the one hand, he’s glad he won’t have to follow her everywhere. It made him feel like the worst kind of creep, intruding where he’s not wanted, observing things not meant for his eyes. He’s sure he isn’t supposed to know the way Abigail closes her eyes when she drinks her steaming tea during breaks, or how lovely she looks when she pulls her hair up, always forgetting some locks of it at the base of her neck.

On the other hand… He will miss her. He hopes no one ever follows her to the bus stop ever again. He hopes no one ever hurts her. It’s foolish, he knows, but he just wants her safe.  
Abigail walks to the bus stop at the usual time. She has two books in her arms and a backpack.

She is wearing a dress. It covers her neck and shoulders but falls slightly higher than her skirts usually do. The delicate eggshell blue colour of it contrasts so wonderfully with her pale skin. Her dark hair is flowing freely with the cold morning breeze. She looks a little nervous, or impatient maybe.

Billy tries not to linger on how his heart feels in his chest as he realizes this may be it. The day Abigail leads him to her lover.

The bus arrives and Billy follows it. Abigail doesn’t disembark at the university, as she usually does. She goes all the way to the terminus. Following her is torture for Billy. He feels his palms get sweaty and his knuckles turn white as he grips the wheel tight. His heart beats too loud and too quick in his chest and each beat hurts.

He wonders if he’s going to be able to follow her all the way there. If he’s going to have to look. He doesn’t think he can. He wonders how he’s going to tell Silver and Ashe. He wonders how her lover will look like. How he’ll touch her, how he’ll speak to her.

How she’ll smile when she sees him. How she’ll hold his hand and kiss him.

Billy wishes he had bought something stronger than coffee. But he can’t drink on the job. Wherever Abigail Ashe is going, he’s going to follow and do his job. And then he’s going to tell Silver he’s never following anyone ever again. He thought he could keep his head on his shoulders for a week, no matter how pretty she was, but… He hadn’t been ready to find her so… adorable. She’s young and rich and beautiful, and yet here she is, taking the bus, drinking her tea with a hint of honey, and going to the library to read with the rest of the students. He feels like Ashe set them up on her trail because he cannot conceive a young rich pretty girl not taking advantage of her privileges. He feels like Ashe doesn’t really know who his daughter is and would rather waste money hiring private detectives than talk to her and realize how amazing she is.

But maybe this is only a cover and he’s about to see what’s under it. Maybe Ashe was right. Maybe something is going on.

Abigail Ashe takes another bus which goes through the suburbs, passing rows and rows of depressingly uniform houses with real white picket fences. Billy does his best not to wonder what Abigail Ashe envisions for her future. Does she want a picket fence house? Is that why she’s taking that long bus ride? Does she like exploring all the parts of town? Does that make her feel free?  
But Abigail doesn’t get off the bus until they are past the suburbs, and nearly entirely out of the town. There, the houses are sparser, their yards bigger. Even the air seems purer, colder, more breathable. The houses look costly, but not in the modern minimalist glass and steel way the Ashe palace is. Billy parks his car in the first abandoned-looking gravel road and walks back where Abigail had got off the bus.

His heart hasn’t stopped beating too loud in his chest and he has to wipe his palms on his thighs with a grimace. He’s suddenly afraid that Abigail is taking all those buses to find a lover she is not supposed to have. He can already see him: a rich partner of her father maybe, able to afford one of those houses for the week-end or for a day, preying on young girls with lavish expensive gifts and smooth slicked back hair before doing unspeakable things to them.

I can’t let that happen, I can’t let that happen, Billy thinks and, before he knows it, panic threatens to take over.

Breathe, Billy has to remind himself forcefully, breathe and focus. He lights up a cigarette to have an excuse to stand in the street. Abigail crosses the street in front of him, looking right and left. She seems to hesitate for a moment and Billy feels cold sweat on the back of his neck, afraid that she has recognized him, that she knows and she’s going to go away, lead him somewhere else. But she just goes on her way and opens the gate of one of the houses. She rings the doorbell and waits.

Billy returns to the gravel road, adrenaline thrumming in his blood, and battles with muddy little tracks and low-hanging branches to get to the house through the back garden. His camera is beating his chest under his jacket. He doesn’t want to use it, but if anything were to happen to Abigail, at least, he could have proof. Proof the man he would probably kill with his bare hands deserved his fate.

He finds the back garden and looks through the French windows just in time to see Abigail climb up the stairs, holding someone’s hand. Her backpack and her shoes are abandoned by the door. Billy looks around him, thinking as quickly as possible, finding a tall tree to climb. There, he has a full view of the bedroom through a smaller window.

The door opens and…

The professor.

The professor Abigail had met at the café with the other girls.

She leads Abigail in the room and closes the door behind her. Abigail latches on her, taking her face in her hands to guide her in a long and passionate kiss. The professor’s hands go to her hair, combing it back, holding on to it as she deepens the kiss.

Billy immediately lowers his eyes. Abigail obviously isn’t being forced into anything and the professor isn’t mistreating her in any way. They’re just… two adults enjoying each other in a way that society condemns. He has no right to spy on these intimate moments. He climbs down the tree as discreetly as he can, trying to focus on his movements.  
He doesn’t know how he feels.

It is true, the professor is a beautiful woman and he can understand how anyone might be taken with her. He’s rather glad Abigail Ashe’s lover seems to treat her right, but he can’t help, he just can’t help feeling heartbroken. He had been too taken by his silent guardian role all week and he has forgotten that, maybe, Abigail didn’t need to be guarded from everything. That Abigail didn’t even know who he was. He had no right to feel heartbroken over a girl who doesn’t even know he exists.  This was work, for God’s sake.

He’s starting to walk back to his car when he realizes he’s going to have to say something to Silver and to Ashe. If he lies and Ashe discovers anyway, they’re in for unpleasant times. He could tell Silver, but then Silver would make him go back and bring evidence. Pictures. Billy doesn’t want to take these pictures, he doesn’t even want to see what was never meant for him.

He can spy on drug deals, a husband cheating on his wife with a much younger girl who’s just here for the money, anything, anything at all, but not two people loving each other against the entire world.

He needs to think…

 

***

 

“So she took two buses to meet with a teacher she already sees at the university during the week?” Silver asks, looking at the pictures.

“Yes, but apparently, they have a sort of more relaxed discussion…class… sort of thing? Here, you can see, Miss Ashe is grading papers with her, so maybe she’s a sort of assistant?” Billy explains, trying not to shift on his feet too nervously.

“Like a student too taken by her professor to realize the professor is making her to do all the stuff she doesn’t want to do…” Silver fills in. “Great, that’s what we’ll tell Ashe, he’ll be happy and the rest of the paycheck will finally fall!” He adds with a knowing smile.

Billy frowns but he doesn’t have the time to say anything before a ginger tornado of rage rushes in, slamming the door, nearly breaking the glass.

“What…” Silver starts but is interrupted by Flint pushing Billy against the wall with impressive strength. Not many men can boast about being able to push Billy around.

But before Billy can react, Flint starts shouting at him: “You lowlife bastard! If I catch you even breathing in the vicinity of Miranda or Miss Ashe ever again, I’ll have your body dumped in the bay! Who do you gutter-dwelling rats think you are?! They have no role to play in this! They’re minding their business so you better mind your own!”

Billy is too surprised by this man, a good head shorter than him, shouting threats at him in his own office to react, so he lets Flint shout and point at him menacingly.

Silver has to hold his arm to stop Flint from going too far. He’s shouting over Flint: “Stop it! You don’t want to draw attention to you right now! Stop shouting! Let him go! Goddammit, James, are you trying to undo everything we’ve been working on?”

Flint seems to settle down at this, but he’s still breathing hard, murder in his eyes as he looks at Billy in disgust. Silver, for a moment, is too surprised by Flint actually listening to him to speak, but he gathers his wits quickly: “You know Miss Ashe,” he states.

“I do. She’s Miranda’s protégée.”

He doesn’t need to say it. It’s better he doesn’t say it in case anyone happens to follow him or one of them is recording it, and hears anything incriminating.

“Did they see Billy? How did you find him?” Silver asks again with great patience. Billy tries to ignore how seeing Silver concerned makes him feel.

“He dropped this in the garden, by the oak tree.” Flint answers, pulling out Billy’s copy of _Swann’s Way_ out of his jacket. He pushes it to Billy’s chest like a blow. Billy grabs the book. He had thought it had fallen under the passenger’s seat. He had looked for it all over his small flat but had half been glad he had lost it. He wasn’t sure he wanted anything to remind him of Abigail Ashe. “Miss Ashe said she remembered seeing a very tall man with short blonde hair around Miranda’s house on Sunday when she visited and she said she thought she had seen him somewhere. Since I hired you, I figured you might have wanted to do more snooping around than I asked you to, just in case the other side is more profitable. If they’re dragged into this and what happens to Mr Hamilton happens to Miss Ashe, I’ll gut both of you, consequences be damned!”

Silver has to restrain Flint again, clutching at his arms until his knuckles turn white: “We didn’t know! James, we didn’t know! Ashe came and asked us to follow his daughter. We thought nothing of it. We haven’t even called him with the results yet.”

“Oh, so there are ‘results’ now? Tell me, did you enjoy spying on them, you…”

“James, for fuck’s sake, stop yelling at Billy before I’m finished! He’s trying to protect them!” Silver intervenes. Flint falls silent, frowning, first at Billy then at Silver.

Silver waits a moment before letting him go, making sure he’s not going to assault Billy as soon as he’s released. Silver gives him the pictures and the notes Billy has given him. He gives it all, without reserve, to the man who could destroy it in a minute. Flint looks at the pictures, skims through the notes, hands still trembling from barely repressed rage.

“Billy was just telling me how Miss Ashe fancied herself the professor’s assistant and did some extra work at her house on Sundays. She might want the secrecy because she’s afraid how her father would receive the news of his only daughter doing extra work for an openly feminist professor. Look, Ashe won’t even notice she’s wearing Miranda’s shirt in all the pictures,” Silver explains, throwing Billy an amused look. He should have known better than thinking he could fool Silver. “So now that you’ve seen everything and you know what we’re going to tell Ashe, we’re going to the diner downstairs to have coffee, and we’ll go over the “I’ll never let another Thomas Hamilton happen to you ever again” thing we’ve been going over for the last month. We’ll protect them, James, we’ll protect Miranda and Abigail.”

Flint seems to deflate a little. He sighs and nods. Silver pats his shoulder and mentions for Billy to take the evidence from him: “Billy please make an appointment with Ashe, I’ll be downstairs.”  
Flint has the grace to mumble a “Sorry for assaulting you” before letting Silver lead him out.

Billy sits in Silver’s chair and rubs his face as the panic winds down. He had been tense, ready to strike, should Flint become a little too belligerent. No wonder Silver looks exhausted if he has to deal with Flint every single day…

Billy’s eyes fall on the novel in his lap.

They even kept his bookmark right in its place, towards the end of the novel. He only has a dozen pages left. He thumbs the pages idly. He wonders if Abigail had been the one to find it. How she had felt when they had told her she had been followed right to her lover’s house. It’s a bit late for that, but he hopes she hadn’t felt guilty, he hopes she hadn’t been too… disgusted… by him.  
A folded piece of paper falls in his lap, making him jump slightly. He opens it and finds a very elegant handwriting in black ink:

_“I am very angry at you and I didn’t want to write, but Miranda said it might help. I hope you realize you’ve walked in a very private life. None of it concerns you. None of it is yours to unveil and destroy. I have very little hope, but I would remind you that what you witnessed has hidden depths, feelings and emotions you could never begin to guess. None of it has been as easy to build as it would be easy for you to destroy. Miranda said addressing you directly would help you see us as human beings, not just as whatever cliché you see us as. I know I should appeal to your mercy, but I can only express hurt, fear, and anger. I don’t know why I should beg for a private life.  
Mlle Vinteuil.” _

 

***

 

The day after Billy and Silver give their final report to a very relieved (and equally puzzled) Ashe, Billy finds a brown envelope on the office doorstep. He picks it up and shakes it a little. It has no return address, no name… Hand-placed at their door, then.

Billy pushes the door open with his shoulder as he opens the envelope all the same. He hasn’t really been… here.. lately. He’s been avoiding his own thoughts, avoiding himself… He reaches in the envelope and finds a book. He frowns and discards the envelope to read the title.

It’s In the _Shadow of Young Girls in Flower_ by Marcel Proust. The next novel of the _Search of Lost Time_.

He opens it and, on the first page, the same elegant handwriting says:

_“Thank you._  
James explained and I’d like to have a chance to apologize if I’ve been overly harsh. You know where and when you can meet me.  
Mlle Vinteuil.” 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not really in the Black Sails fandom anymore, but I'd be really flattered if you left a comment or stopped by [ my tumblr ](https://awedbyhersplendor.tumblr.com/)to give some feedback!


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